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CBI summons Kapil, Azhar, Jadeja, Gavaskar, Shastri

The Central Bureau of Investigation has issued summons to several cricketers, including present India coach Kapil Dev, former skipper Mohammad Azharuddin, ex-manager Ajit Wadekar and commentators Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar in the match-fixing case.

Apart from them, summons have also been issued to hard-hitting batsman Ajay Jadeja, one-time medium pacer Prashant Vaidya and a host of present and past cricketers and BCCI officials, commentators, government officials, journalists, a politician, a cine star, bookies and businessmen.

Wicketkeeper Nayan Mongia and ex-opener Navjot Singh Sidhu have already responded to the CBI summons and got their statements recorded. While Sidhu deposed on Monday, Mongia was questioned yesterday.

CBI sources said: ''We have issued summons to several cricketers and they are likely to appear before the agency in the coming days.''

Summons are understood to have been sent to all those who figured in the secretly-taped video recording by former all-rounder Manoj Prabhakar and the team of the web site tehelka.com.

Wadekar and Gavaskar's examination is expected this week. The schedule of others is not yet known.

The questioning of all these people has been necessitated following Prabhakar's May 24 allegation that Kapil Dev had offered him a Rs 2.5 million bribe to under perform in a 1994 Singer Cup match against Pakistan in Sri Lanka, and the subsequent May 28 media-screening of the 90-minute edited version of 'Fallen Heroes', a 50-odd hours recording of secretly-shot interviews of the country's top cricketers, officials and others linked to the game.

Most of the participants in the recording talked about the existence of match-fixing in cricket in India and suspected involvement of certain cricketers, officials and bookies.

'Fallen Heroes' found Kapil Dev, Azharuddin, Jadeja, Mongia and Ajay Sharma involved in match-fixing in connivance with bookies. The Union Sports Minister alongwith several others were 'interviewed by Prabhakar and the team of tehelka.com.

Prabhakar had named Sidhu, Mongia and Vaidya as witnesses to Kapil's offer and claimed that he had informed the then manager Wadekar, captain Azharuddin, Shastri and Gavaskar about the incident within the next 24 hours. Hence it was felt that their examination was necessary with the investigation point of view, the sources said.

Soon after the allegation against Kapil, all of them, barring Shastri, denied having any knowledge about the episode. But the secretly-taped recording of tehelka.com exposed them, as almost all admitted to have been either witness to the incident or being informed about it by Prabhakar the same day. Azhar was the only person in question whom the portal could not interview.

The decision to issue summons to the people who figured in the taped recordings and also those who have been named by them to be allegedly involved in the malpractice is understood to have been taken after the investigating officers led by joint director R N Sawani completed the viewing of 'Fallen Heroes'.

The agency was also assessing whether the conversation Manoj Prabhakar had with Sports Minister Sukhbir Singh Dhindsa in the video recording by tehelka.com was relevant to the investigation or whether it was necessary to counter check the contents with the minister.

Prominent among others who are likely to be questioned by the CBI are ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya, BCCI president A C Muthaiah, board secretary J Y Lele, former team physio Ali Irani, Mumbai Commissioner of Police (Railways) Rakesh Maria, additional Income Tax commissioner Vishwa Bandhu Gupta, Sports Authority of India secretary Amrit Mathur, former cricketers Bishen Singh Bedi, Kiran More, Sandeep Patil, Mohinder Amarnath and Sanjay Manjrekar, commentator Narottam Puri, Congress leader Kamal Nath and film actress Anju Mahendru.

UNI